Considering rehoming my dog

[Smirna]

I had a lovely small dog for many years. Cuddly, friendly, placid. Sadly she died. It left a hole in my life so I got a new puppy. Same breed, same breeder.

New dog is horrible. She’s a year old and still chewing things all the time. Still peeing and pooping in the house sometimes, she just isn’t getting the message about going outside. She’s very barky and constantly barks for attention. If I’m eating she barks beside the table. She wants to play all the time and barks at me to join in. If I ignore her she starts clawing at me. I do play for a bit but she hassles me constantly. I end up locking her out of the room so I can work or watch tv. When I come home she leaps around and runs in circles, she won’t cuddle me or let me pick her up. If someone is eating she’s in their face trying to snatch food. Kids are always crying because she’s taken their food. Even if we’ve just been for a 30 minute walk she’s still bouncing around and playing when we get home, she won’t lie down.

Basically we are not a match in terms of energy levels. My previous dog was ideal, two short walks a day and a bit of playing with toys, then she lay down. So I purposely got the same low energy breed, but this dog is not low energy. I’m considering rehoming to someone who wants a more high energy dog. I feel awful about it but I just don’t have the energy or time to play with the dog the amount she wants.

You could play with it in the garden.
Set up some brain games.
Scatter feed.
Training session.

What you are doing right now isn’t working. So you need to change something.

I do it but mine are older. Dog needs walking 🤷‍♀️ so it's that or they come with me.

OP you're now deflecting from the issue. The issue is you cannot and seemingly (& more importantly WILL not) meet the needs of your dog.

You need to be responsible here and re-home it to a more suitable owner. You'd be far better of rehoming an older dog which will be happier with the walks etc you can give.

Look, it's clear that you cannot be arsed with this new dog.
I don't know if you are looking through things with rose tinted glasses, but considering you've had dogs before I'm finding your shock at how puppies can behave laughable.
Have you taken her to training classes at all?
People have given multiple suggestions on how you can tire her out without leaving the house - have you tried any of them before or are you willing to try them so you can have a relationship with this dog?
You have been asked if you've contacted the breeder about taking her back, but all you are commenting so far are things that point that finger at this dog for being the problem, and not taking any responsibility for the places you've gone wrong.

Ok, walk the dog later. While it’s waiting to blow off steam give it some stuff to do. Treats in a box of paper (my dogs favourite), treats wrapped in a knitted tea towel, breakfast on a lick mat, a filled kong, any other activity toys you can buy. When the kids are asleep do 10, yes, 10 minutes of training. That would be enough for your breed to really settle them.

Walks need to be offlead in stimulating environments like beaches, woods, parks with lots of polite dogs.

An hour should be plenty for that breed but they are very human focused so need interaction too. Playing, a flirt pole, tug (which will need to be taught) even throwing a ball. It sounds actually she is craving interrraction more than exercise.

But if you don’t enjoy your dog then rehome her. Someone else would and it’s the best thing for all of you.

If a dog is badly behaved and difficult, that is the fault of the human, not the dog, and an appropriate human who doesn't think that the dog is a toy to be played with twice a day will fix the problems - albeit it will take a little longer because the effort and training hasn't been put in at a yonger age.

OP, I would suggest that you stick to animated toys in future. They will sit your reqirements better than something alive.

I don't like dogs and wouldn't have one but even I can see it's not right to lock her out of a room so you can watch tv.

My DH and I work full time, my DH works 6 days a week for his own company and between us, our sprocker has 2.5 hours of walk a day. All year round (unless it's too hot).

Please rehome them.

I’m sorry that the dog hasn’t lived up to your expectations, but I agree with the others, it sounds like you haven’t got the basic training in place.

So you have primary age children, work full-time with a disability, presumably with no other adult in the house and you thought it prudent to get a puppy. Right, I think I've spotted your first mistake🙄

If you can afford it could you get a walker to come in at lunchtime and take it out? Then May settle more in house ?

They are still very young. I found my small dog most demanding around that age. I too worked from home and was often interrupted by them craving attention.

It gradually got better. They gradually adjusted to our lifestyle. By 18 months, they were much more placid and by two, they were the most well behaved dog. They mainly sleep whilst I work. We go out for 1/2h at lunchtime and then a longer one in the evening. They're most active between 4-9pm.

Give them more of a chance.

Ok, so just like thousands of other dog owners you will have to make the time to care properly for your dog 🤷🏼‍♀️

No, you said it’s illegal which it isn’t. It’s a fact of life that if you have an energetic or young dog you need to get on board with early morning walks. If you’re a single parent with young kids that can’t manage this then you shouldn’t have got a puppy. I say this as a single parent with a primary school ages kid who got a puppy. I have to leave my child at home, although they are older. If they weren’t I wouldn’t have got a puppy.

Seriously some of the advice on here has been insane. Who on earth would leave a 5 yo in bed to walk the dog.

I have an alaskan malamute and even 2 x 30 mins is enough for him walk wise as we ensure he has other mental enrichment and other ways of being exercised. We usually do 1 hr of proper excerise in one go, then a sniffy walk in the evening. We find the sniffy walk wears him out more than running a round like a loon quite often.

I don't think its necessarily the walk time that's the issue, you just need to spend some time training the dog, research mental enrichment and spend some time playing these games with them. Training place/wait etc is vital. Just because your other dogs didn't need training doesn't mean this dog doesn't. Some 1:1 training sessions would be worth it.

I have a pug also and he also needed lots of training as he's quite chaotic without it. He's 2 and it's an ongoing process unfortunately.

I think many posters here are been massively unfair!
When you choose a dog you choose a breed based on typical traits of that breed. So a city dwelling person working around the clock with a crazy social life you would hope would not choose a border collie for example. Had the OP got a cocker spaniel and then was annoyed at the high energy nature of her dog then all posters here would be right. But to choose a breed that is not known for been high energy/ high needs and have experience of the breed and then get a dog that is really not typical of the breed and this does not work with her lifestyle I think it's fair to consider rehoming and in everyones best interests. Unless other viable options are possible like dog walker, maybe 1.1 dog trainer etc

You will always get exceptions to the rule, so a non vocal JRT, a laid back cocker etc. but you actually won't know until you get that dog.

And as for leaving a 5 yr old in bed while you walk the dog. I have a dog and 5 year old. Not a chance would I ever consider that!

Regardless of breed, all dogs require training, time and effort.

The OP obviously doesn't want to give the dog this, so she shouldn't be just be considering rehoming the dog, she should be taking active steps on doing it - for the sake of the poor dog.

The dog doesn’t sound high needs or high energy just badly trained. Nothing the OP has described isn’t fixable with some actual time and effort

Why did you post here? You seem convinced youre right and we are all wrong?! Did you want a group of people to pat your head and tell you " of course! Rehome the little shitbag! You are being perfectly reasonable expecting a different species to understand your wants and needs perfectly, and put them before their own, and fancy not being able to regulate their behaviour before they are fully grown!"

I just hope this puts you off getting anymore. I can recommend the Dogs Trust. A one year old of that breed won't have a problem finding a loving and educated home willing to inconvenience themselves a little for its happiness.

@Orangebadger but OP isn't describing anything unusual for an adolescent shih-tzu. Even low energy companion breeds need exercise and mental stimulation, especially when they're young.

Her expectations of 30 minutes of exercise may be okay for an adult but this dog isn't even two years old yet - puppies and teenagers are always going to need more exercise and input than an adult of the same breed.

@coffeecupsandwaxmelts OP is not walking the dog for 30 min a day. She's walking the dog for 1 hr, 30 min twice a day.

Puppies actually require less exercise than adult dogs but yes more mental stimulation. The 5 min rule per month until 1 years old. Large breeds often enter adulthood at 2 but smaller breeds it's normal at 1 year of age so this is not really a puppy anymore, but a young adult.

I agree the dog needs more than she can give. But why slate someone for this? It's a far more sensible decision to re home an animal who has needs you cannot meet than keep it when you cannot for whatever reason find another solution. From what I have read on this breed her expectations are reasonable. Even for a young dog.

No one has actually suggested leaving a 5 year old in the house alone, you just set up your answers so you could claim that.

So what are you going to do? Because it seems like what you want is to complain about how awful your dog is while doing absolutely nothing about training or rehoming it. That’s the worst outcome for all the humans and dogs involved. Just ring the breeder and ask them to take the dog back, or contact a breed-specific rescue.

Yes, I know she's walking it for 30 minutes twice a day - but I don't know many young dogs that would settle for a full working day on such a small amount of stimulation. A full hour in the morning (including running and decent aerobic exercise) and 15 minutes round the block in the evening would be much better.

I think the reason she's being criticised is all her issues are easily solvable with very basic training. We're not talking about a dog who is reactive, or aggressive, or who guards food or bites children - all it needs is more time from it's owner.

😁 you've replaced an elderly placing dog with a young bouncy one!

Get training and in a few years, you'll have that placid dog #2 !

@coffeecupsandwaxmelts I agree with the walking for me it's much easier to do a longer walk in the morning and then a quick walk in the evening, but I do know of, and have had some dogs that really are happy with a couple or short walks even when young but I think that's dependent on the nature of the dog. The OP hasn't really told us what training she has already done.

I think all OP wants is permission to re-home her dog - which of course she should do if she's struggling.

But I think people are allowed to get annoyed at yet another dog ending up in rescue through absolutely no fault of their own. Rescues are bursting at the seams with dogs like this - it's not a bad dog, just one who isn't being exercised and trained properly.